"My name is Komax. I am not the wizard!"
(Below) Howling Dog is seen from the North, and to some, it resembles the wizard's hat from the Harry Potter franchise. Most will just assume and call it wizards hat, and ignorantly give the rock the wrong name. Most won't do the research to find it true historical name. This rock has only one name... and that name is...Howling Dog.
(There are several interpretations of the Face Rock legend.
The following is an adaptation of one such interpretation.)
(In later translations of the legend, the basket of racoons was changed to a basket of kittens. It is believed the legend of Face Rock was verbally passed down through several tribal generations and the story we read today is an adaption of the original legend.)
Ewauna was an adventurous child of the mountains and was eager to explore the ocean she had never seen. She was warned that the evil spirit Seatka, who lived in the ocean, could cause her harm if he had the chance.
During the night, Ewauna waved off the warning and ran down to the ocean for a moon light swim. She brought along her dog and racoons with her to the beach.
Princess Ewauna swam out into the moonlit waters, and the evil spirit Seatka seized the moment. Seatka grabbed the young princess in the water and tried to force her to look at him so he could control her and have power over her.
Princess Ewauna refused to look directly at Seatka, keeping her eyes solely on the moon and telling him she would never look at him. This angered Seatka even more. Out of rage of her defiance, he turned the princess, her racoons, and her dog Komax to stone. Komax was turned to stone as he howled from the shore for the princess.
Today, Ewauna remains frozen in time looking towards the northern sky, with Komax, and the racoons forever nearby.
Ottile wrote down many stories that Mary told her. Mary also taught Mrs. Kronenberg the dialect of Miluk, or Lower Coquille Tribe language. Although Mary died in 1911, the deep friendship yielded a rich, enduring abundance of Coastal Indian tales.
However, today, the rock historically named Howling Dog constantly gets incorrectly labelled, the Wizards Hat. So, what caused this once well-known named rock to be so mislabeled by visitors and photographers today...?
Photographers would assume they are looking at the rock named Wizards Hat, so they photograph it, post it to social media, label the pointed rock Wizards Hat, and the Google algorithm picks up the name combined with the photo. This means, if you Google image search Wizards Hat, 75-80% of the photos that come up are actually images of the Howling Dog.
"So what if Howling Dog is mistaken as The Wizards Hat!"
In other words, Portland would not appreciate if you incorrectly gave the name Mount Rainer to their Mount Hood, or Seattle wouldn't appreciate you calling the Space Needle the Eiffel Tower or naming the Columbia River the Willamette River. Places and things have names for a reason.
No matter what the rock may resemble from the different sides, it's still named Haystack Rock. This concept should also be applied to the rock Howling Dog.
This unfortunate chain of events is now almost impossible to correct and get the story straight.